Chapter 35 Part 1
Freighton wiped the sweat from his brow with the inside of his bicep. One thing he didn't need in this fight was his eyes to sting and blur. Hercules was, by far, the toughest opponent he had ever faced. Freighton had been accustomed to battle and to the initial locking of weapons after a charge. He had also come to realize that battles were, more often, won on the initial charge. The strength of the other person would waiver for just a moment as the reality of what was happening began to bite in. In that moment, Freighton had slain many adversaries. His axe had found their insides and spilled them on the ground.
When Freighton ran towards Hercules and locked weapons,(Hercules simply used his hands) he found something he had never experienced. Hercules was a warrior unafraid of death. After Feighton got a closer look at him, he understood why. He was already dead. Of course, even in life, Hercules had not been afraid of death. His demigod status prevented him from having the same fears average mortals had. Death had only served to make Hercules an even fiercer adversary. He literally lived for the fight.
It had been Freighton who had flinched as he understood what he was up against with Hercules. In every other battle Freighton had been in, he had never been particularly worried about his life. It was only in battling Hercules that he started to wonder why. Freighton had never been worried because he knew, on some level, that he was far more skilled than his opponents. He had nothing to worry about because the playing field wasn't even. It was not that he was arrogant in this assessment as he was hardly aware of it in the first place. Hercules, though, was not like any other opponent he had faced. Whereas Freighton was a mortal embodiment of Aries in a way, Hercules in his current form was the essence of Aries.
As Freighton had flinched, he became aware that Hercules was pressing his axe back toward himself. Hercules was gaining the upper hand because Freighton's will had wavered. Before Freighton could regain his composure, Hercules had shoved him backward as though he were little more than an annoying child.
Freighton had expected an aggressive attack after Hercules shoved him back. Normally, most fighters would take the fact that his balance was off as a sign of weakness. An aggressive weight-forward thrust of some kind was usually to be expected. The person who moved unsteadily back, however, had an advantage if he realized he was already moving away. As opposed to trying to resist the thrust, it was better to often just go along with the momentum established and allow the attacking person to over-extend themselves and thereby throw themselves off balance. Likely, one's own balance would be recovered long before the attackers, and so what had seemed a clear disadvantage on one side before reverses to the benefit instead.
Hercules, however, did not push his advantage. he seemed content to bide his time--to allow his opponent the best possible chance to fight. Freighton knew this either meant Hercules was really generous, or quite good. Hercules wasn't going to win without obtaining the maximum amount of honor from his victory. He wanted the other person to know they had been bested because he was the best, not because the other person had lost their footing in a panicked moment. It was with this realization that Freighton had wiped the sweat from his forehead.
